Chapter 10: “All Politics is Local”: Enhancing Media Literacy Through State and Local Elections

The 2016 presidential election cycle was arguably one of the most divisive in U.S. history. Although some may compare the harsh political rhetoric and mudslinging to other heated elections historically (e.g., John Adams vs. Thomas Jefferson (1800), John Quincy Adams vs. Andrew Jackson (1824)) the constant barrage of media coverage through both traditional (e.g., newspaper, radio, and television) and contemporary social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) outlets appeared to not only reach more voters than ever, but possibly to separate the country more deeply than recent elections as well.

In as much as national elections capture the attention of a large proportion of the citizenry and tend be the primary focus for civic education, it is arguably at the local and state levels that policy-making has the most immediate impact on our daily lives (Jenkins-Smith, Silva, & Waterman, 2005). It is often the case that our students engage less frequently with state and local civic issues in meaningful ways, a feature which may influence voter turnout realities and other civic behaviors at state/local levels (MacIac, 2014). Those realties notwithstanding, important issues were determined at local voting booths in this most recent election cycle. In the 2016 cycle, there were numerous local and state campaign advertisements, Facebook and Twitter wars, and fake news stories that local voters had to wade through as they worked to evaluate and analyze the important civic choices before them.